Hank Stuever

Hank Stuever's new book, Tinsel, documents three consecutive Christmases in the upper-middle-class Texas town of Frisco, including a woman who decorates McMansions for $150 an hour, a man whose overly decorated home is a YouTube sensation, and other ghastly holiday monstrosities. But maybe, Stuever convincingly argues, all this commercial excess is "more historically appropriate" than a pious, Christian Christmas. Stuever's clear-eyed examination of America in holiday orgy–mode is energetic, acerbic, and informative. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S Main St, 624-6600. 7 pm, free.)